MISTAKE PLACES STORE'S CUSTOMERS IN DAYTIME DRAMA OF DIFFERENT SORTS

Customers looking at a television monitor in a check-cashing store saw a gunman sneaking around and thought they were witnessing a crime.

But it was daytime drama of a different sort.The women dashed down the street to call police, who quickly swarmed the store. The women didn't realize the monitor was just a TV set tuned to "General Hospital," and the man with gun was an actor.

As police positioned themselves outside the Check-X-Change on Wednesday, a dispatcher called the store's teller, 20-year-old Chris Wiltse.

"They asked if everything was OK and I said, `Yes,' " Wiltse said. "And they said, `Are you sure?' "

The police dispatcher asked Wiltse to come outside to talk to the officers.

In the convincing make-believe, actor Scott Thompson Baker, playing Colton on the soap opera, was creeping gun-in-hand toward the hospital roof to rescue some hostages. He eventually freed them, of course.

Baker, in an interview from Los Angeles, said he was flattered that his performance was so effecting.

Police Lt. Robert VanLeuven said the women, whose names weren't released, did the right thing.